These days, it is not hard to have web presence. There are literally dozens of ways to start your own web page, make some links and structure your own site. It is very easy. Despite this, there are a few things that you will want to know if you are planning to get serious in developing a meaningful presence on the Internet. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you the ten main things you need to keep in mind if you want to have a good website:
+ Forget HTML. There is a new standard to make web pages, and its name is XHTML. Web pages built in XHTML are lighter than HTML pages and, therefore they open faster and consume less resources (read bandwidth). Likewise, web pages in XHTML are tidier, and therefore easier to update or modify. If your page is not written in XHTML these days, it will be in a big disadvantage before the rest.
+ XHTML works better if you use a separate CSS file instead of embedded styling code in your page.
+ You need to carry out a very good research when talking about the design and structuring of the web pages, because everything you include in them will give a message. Layout, colours, font type and font size, among others, will determine if your visitors stay or not, so it does need to be studied.
+ Repeat your graph files. Many people, specially who design their websites by exporting them from an image editing application, just let the computer write the HTML code for them. They do not notice, but by doing this, their folders accumulate various copies of the same layout graphs page after page. Avoid this by exporting the important files individually and repeating them in the code.
+ Use texts, not graphics. Though titles and subtitles may look better when showed with a graph than with a text, you need to remember that blind people also browse the Internet and that the graph files that you use for your titles will not be read by the software they use to listen to your web page.
+ Use a comfortable column width for your texts. As a rule of thumb, between 12 and 15 words per line is comfortable for most readers.
+ Do not keep the font size fixed. This is a big mistake. Although most designers are young people with good eyes, many readers may be old people with more tired eyes and may want to read the texts in a larger font size... If you keep them fixed, they'll leave.
+ Do not exaggerate with your images. OK, the 21st century is the century of image, but lots of images and animations must not reduce the importance of the main part of your web page. What do you want your visitors to look at?
+ Take a good look at the code of your web pages before uploading them. It is very important to double-check if all links work, if all graphs have their alternative texts, if all the forms give the appropriate result and if you have spelling mistakes.
+ Don't steal. Copyright is fully in force and enforceable on-line and, further, copies can be easily detected. You need to either ask for permissions when you are planning to place someone else's job on-line or produce your contents by yourself. Another option is to check out works under a Creative Commons license and use them following the authors' directives.
...You're welcome.
Heptagrama, the web summed up.
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Work and business + Internet
